


don't let me let you down

by hollow_city



Series: shadows of the past (can be felt by the present) [3]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender, Batman (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Dreams, Gen, Insecurity, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Past Lives, Reincarnation, Spirit World, momo makes an appearance, somewhat dialogue heavy, you don't need to have watched avatar to read this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-13
Updated: 2018-03-13
Packaged: 2019-03-23 07:58:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13783182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hollow_city/pseuds/hollow_city
Summary: damian doesn't know what it means to be the avatar, and dick can only tell him so much. the only ones left who can tell him anything are those who came before him.





	don't let me let you down

**Author's Note:**

> i love aang. aang is such a precious treasure. ugh. he's my favorite avatar (but i might be biased). this is probably one of the only ones where an atla/lok character will show up because i'm trying to make this accessible to both fans of those shows and to people who have never seen them.  
> title is from the piece of art that is idle worship by paramore. listen to it while you read, if you so please. it's very fitting.

“It’s different,” Damian tells him.

“It’s different,” his little brother says as he throws himself in front of a gun for him. As Robin takes hits meant for Batman.

For the longest time, Dick can’t understand what Damian means. He can’t fathom how it’s different. If anything, it’s the opposite of what the boy is saying. It’s different when Damian takes those hits because Dick is supposed to protect him. Not let _himself_ be protected. He’s, in all sense of the words save for biological, Damian’s father figure. It’s his responsibility to keep Damian safe, for more than just because the kid is the most precious thing in his life.

Lately, though, it seems to be getting worse. It grows and grows until one night Damian defies a direct order and takes a knife to the arm that was meant to hit Dick in the stomach. It wouldn’t have penetrated the Batsuit, but the spot on Damian’s armor that covers his upper arm isn’t as thick as the armor covering his torso, so, with little resistance, the knife sinks straight into the flesh of his little brother’s arm. The only sign that he’s been hurt is the twitch in his face, and the deepening of the snarl pulling at his lips. With a particularly vicious hit to the side of the head, the crook goes down.

Damian makes for the roof like he’s going to continue on their patrol route once they zip tie the thug and leave him for the cops. Dick isn’t going to stand for that, not tonight. He follows the boy to the end of the alleyway before bringing his hand down on his shoulder. Damian tenses and Dick can tell he’s actively avoiding looking at him.

“Come on, kiddo, we’re done for the night,” Dick tells him, keeping his voice quiet but smooth and free of the gravel Batman has. 

Damian cocks his head to the side. “But we’re not done. It’s not even midnight yet.” He looks genuinely confused, and something hot and painful tightens in Dick’s chest.

“I know it’s not, but we’re going home. Looks pretty quiet out here tonight.”

It doesn’t, really, but Damian doesn’t need to know that.

-

When Damian wakes up, everything is quiet. This is the first thing that tips him off. It’s never quiet when he wakes up, whether it’s Pennyworth coming to check on him, or Titus waking him up because he’s been locked in and needs to relieve himself, or Grayson interrupting his sleep; there’s always something.

This time, there’s nothing.

There’s only quiet rustling, like flowers and leaves, and the distant chirping of an animal that doesn’t sound real.

Damian’s eyes open slowly, and when he finally decides to sit up, he finds himself sitting in a small pool of water. His shoulders are stiff and he’s ready to jump up and attack at any second if need be, but he takes a moment to investigate his surroundings.

It’s a forest with all the right lighting, it’s the perfect temperature, nothing is too bright or too bland; it’s perfect. Whatever this is, it isn’t real. He knows that much.

A place this perfect doesn’t exist.

“Damian,” a voice says from behind him.

The firebender spins around so quickly the water sprays out around him. It’s then that he notices that he’s dressed in nothing but black pants and a loose red shirt, but neither looks like anything he owns.

“Who are you?” Damian spits, glaring up at the man in front of him. Well, he’s more of a teenager, or maybe not. He has a young face and wide, blue eyes, so it’s hard for Damian to tell.

The teenager smiles. “My name is Aang. It’s great to finally meet you!”

He holds out his hand, revealing a blue arrow tattoo that stretches down his arm and onto the back of his hand. It matches the one on his head, and with some observation, Damian realizes that they stretch down to his feet, too.

“I’ve been waiting to meet you for so long. I love meeting the new people!”

Damian stares at the hand for a moment, until Aang puts it down, not looking even slightly put out by the snub.

“A name doesn’t tell me who you are,” he says, his voice hard and cold. “Or where I am.”

Aang grips the staff he’s been holding in both hands and leans his weight on it. “Huh. Kyoshi did warn me that you’re kind of prickly.”

Damian’s eyes narrow and he contemplates practicing the breathing exercises Grayson has ingrained in him.

“Sorry, sorry. I’m you!” At the look the younger boy gives him, he frantically continues. “Okay, you would think after so many years I’d get better at this. Clearly, time has nothing to do with it. I was the Avatar, a long time ago.”

At that, Damian’s entire body loosens. He _does_ know what this is. This is the Spirit World. Grayson had mentioned it once before, only in passing, because he claimed he didn’t know enough about it. He’s also heard things from his grandfather and his mother, but neither have ever made it here, so they don’t know much either.

(Damian hopes they never make it here.)

But he knows this much.

“You’re one of my past lives,” he states, studying the teenager in front of him. He can guess that he was an airbender, based on his tattoos and his staff. Obviously, airbenders don’t get tattoos when they achieve master status anymore because that’s just not possible. There aren’t enough of them, and the ones that do exist will probably never reach that level. Grayson is the exception, but Damian knows he will never get his tattoos. It would be a deathwish.

(He knows Grayson would love to have them, but he also knows that he would never be that foolish.)

“That I am,” Aang replies, grinning. “We figured it was about time you learned about all this. I guess it’s pretty hard to find out anything from anybody now, isn’t it?”

Damian scowls. “Indeed.”

The airbender winces. “Yeah. It’s… you know what?” He perks up, his cheerful demeanor returning. “We can talk about that another time. We have a lot of other things that are much more important.”

“Like what?” Damian asks, raising an eyebrow.

Aang smiles again. “Walk with me.”

He does, and they begin to pick their way through the peaceful swampy-looking forest.

They pass glowing, fantastical creatures that Damian is sure have never existed. They all look vaguely familiar, but then there’s a feature that doesn’t belong or something that doesn’t make sense. Like a creature that looks like a pink rabbit with wings. A dog with the head of a tiger. A butterfly with two sets of wings. A horse with the front half of a moose.

It’s the most peculiar, most beautiful thing Damian has ever seen.

A giggle echoes through the trees, and Damian tenses, his hands tightening.

Aang holds up a hand. “Don’t worry, it’s just Ikki,” he says. A tiny smirk grows on his face when Damian glares at him. “You didn’t think we were the only ones here, did you?”

The boy scoffs. “Obviously not. I am not stupid.”

Aang sighs. “I didn’t think you were. Alright, kid. I think I’ve stalled long enough.”

“What do you mean?”

He lets out a huff. “Not everyone appreciates having the weight of the world dropped on their back the second they get here. I’ve been here long enough, talked to enough of us to know that much.”

Damian watches as the teenager takes a seat on a large, protruding root of the huge tree looming above them. He pats the spot beside him, and after a moment, he joins him, putting a sizable distance between them.

“Why did you bring me here?” Damian asks before Aang can even begin. The airbender rests his staff across his knees and stares off into the misty distance.

“You have nobody to teach you anymore. None of the recent Avatars have,” he says, his eyes sad and his brow furrowed in a frown.

“Recent?”

He chuckles, and it's a bitter and mirthless sound. “I’m old, Damian. I am _very_ old. The last couple hundred years are considered recent to me.”

Damian doesn’t say anything as he tries to fathom those words. He knows the Avatar has been around for a very long time, that the world hasn’t always been this way, but it still takes his brain a moment to consider a time that long ago.

Aang takes his silence as a cue to continue. “Anyway, there’s nobody to teach you anymore, so we have to. It’s not unusual to talk to your past lives, I talked to them all the time, but I also had a world full of benders to talk to. You don’t.”

Damian considers his response, before hesitantly replying, “I have people.”

Aang smiles. “Yeah, you’re lucky like that. We never even got to meet the Avatar before you before she came to live here.”

Damian realizes the weight of the words, realizes what they really mean, even though he didn’t say it. The Avatar before him was killed before she could visit the Spirit World for the first time.

He will never admit it, and he doesn’t let it show, but fear races up his spine and makes his heart flutter. He shouldn’t be afraid, he supposes, but this isn’t the same as it usually is. When he’s Robin, he has his skills to protect him, he has his armor, and he has his Batman. But the mask and his big brother can’t protect him from the entire world. Not this time.

A hand comes down on his shoulder and squeezes, and Damian doesn’t bother tensing.

“I know it seems scary, but you need to understand, Damian. You’re the most powerful being on Earth,” Aang tells him, putting out his hand absently to allow a mouse with elephant ears to scurry up his arm and onto his shoulder.

Damian scoffs. “Doubtful.”

The airbender stands, sending the mouse into the air. It lands on a branch and sits, watching them.

“You’ve worked with Superman before, right?” Aang asks, twirling his staff absentmindedly. Damian thinks that he’s a lot like Grayson; he can’t sit still for more than a few minutes.

“Of course.”

Aang turns on him, grinning. “You could take down Superman.”

Damian openly gapes for a minute, before his he regains his composure and his mouth clicks shut. He climbs to his feet and scares off a few nearby spirits.

“Clearly you have not faced Superman before,” he retorts, his arms crossed. He doesn’t like to admit it, and Father never did either, but Kent could be a formidable foe in the event that he was compromised. It’s why Father put in place so many contingencies in order to take out the Kryptonian if the time called for it.

Damian isn’t stupid enough to think that he, on his own, with none of the aforementioned contingencies on hand, could take out Superman.

Aang shrugs. “Can’t say I have. And maybe you couldn’t kill him, but you’d stand a good chance. A really good chance. Want to know why?”

Damian humors him. “Why?”

Aang steps forward, planting the end of his staff firmly on the ground and looks Damian in the eye.

“Because you have all of us behind you. _All of us._ Not just me, but every single Avatar that has ever lived. You have all of our skill and experiences at your fingertips,” Aang explains, gesturing wildly.

“You’re talking about the Avatar state,” Damian doesn’t word it like a question, but Aang picks up that it is one anyway.

“Of course!” Aang bursts, spinning around.

Damian still can’t understand how he has so much energy. This reminds him of Grayson, too, and he can’t help but wonder if most airbenders are this way.

“What does… how do you enter the Avatar state?” he pushes, trying not to sound too interested, but utterly failing.

Aang winces. “It’s a lot of work, and we’re not really there yet.” He ignores the scathing look Damian sends his way. “I have to warn you, the Avatar state is a tricky thing. You can’t always control when or why you enter it, but when you do, you are much more dangerous. _Much_ more dangerous.”

Damian doesn’t like the sound of that. “What do you mean, I cannot control it?”

“I mean, extreme emotional instability and being the Avatar is never a good idea. If you’re too upset or too angry or, I guess, even too scared, you might find yourself in the Avatar state,” Aang replies. He crouches low to allow a lemur with long ears to climb onto his shoulder. It continues up onto his head and makes itself comfortable there. He doesn’t seem to even realize the spirit is there. “Trust me, I speak from experience.”

“So it’s… a defense mechanism,” Damian concludes, and the airbender snaps his fingers and points at him.

“You got it,” he says before he makes a face. “One day you’ll be able to carefully control it, but it takes training. We’ll get there, though.”

The relief that spreads through Damian’s chest isn’t something he ever thought he’d feel. He has people. People who know who he is, people who know how to help him. He’s never been stupid enough to hope for something like that, not ever, but deep down he thinks maybe it was there. Deep down he hoped that somebody would reach out, that somebody would understand.

And now he has centuries worth of people who understand, and who can help him.

“Thank you,” he says, keeping his voice carefully steady and void of the emotion that he’s barely keeping at bay.

Aang smiles. “You’re very welcome, kid.” His face slowly falls. “But there is one drawback. One big drawback.”

Of course, it would be too good to be true. But maybe it isn’t that bad, so Damian gestures for the teenager to continue.

He takes a deep breath and reaches up to pull the large-eared lemur into his arms. The spirit doesn’t seem to mind at all, and lounges back, its tail hanging over Aang’s arm.

“If you are killed while in the Avatar state,” he says slowly, rehearsed and careful, “then the Avatar will cease to exist.”

“What?!” Damian doesn’t mean to shout, and he immediately clears his throat once he realizes that he had. “What do you mean _cease_?”

Aang hugs the lemur tighter. “I mean, the reincarnation cycle will stop. You will be the last Avatar.”

Damian’s chest tightens as his mind races. This is monumental. This is insurmountable. He can’t… he doesn’t know what to do with this.

He knows that being Robin is dangerous and could lead to some unfixable mistakes, but there are always things in the way. Things that will keep him alive, that will keep him safe. If he dies, he’s beginning to understand that he may be missed. Grayson will tear the world apart, and Todd will fly off the rails. He doesn’t know if Drake would miss him, but he would miss Drake if he died, so he hopes that maybe he would care.

Before, if he died, it didn’t matter. Not in the grand scheme of things.

(He’s told this to Grayson before, and the man was horrified. It took the boy a little while to understand what he’d done wrong, but he’s working on it.)

But now, it’s different. Now, if he dies, he destroys a legacy. He puts an end to a line of lives so long he can’t even begin to fathom it. He puts an end to the _Avatar._ Damian doesn't even know if he deserves to be the Avatar. How could he ever be the last one? 

For once, he can’t wrap his mind around the thought.

This is different, now. Before, he had considered his life less valuable, because he would just come back if he died. Sure, it wouldn’t really be _him,_ but the Avatar is reincarnated, and he is the Avatar, so close enough, right?

No. Damian understands now.

“So what do I do?” he asks, his voice barely above a whisper. “What am I supposed to do?”

Aang steps forward, holding the lemur in one arm and reaching out to rest his hand on Damian’s arm.

“You’re one of the first to make it here before… death, in many years. You have a fighting chance, Damian,” Aang tells him, and it’s vague enough that Damian feels a twinge of annoyance.

“To do what?”

“To change the world,” he says. “Make it better. Help make it a safe place for benders like you and me. Like your siblings.”

The thought is nice, but it’s unrealistic. Damian knows that.

“How am I supposed to do that? It is the _entire world_ , against _me,_ ” Damian says, frowning.

Aang shakes his head. “No, it’s not. They’ve put down so many Avatar’s since this new world began, but they’ve never faced a fully formed Avatar before. It's not just you, Damian. It's all of us."

Damian pauses for a moment and frowns. "I can't... what if I can't do it?" He wants to hit himself as soon as he says it. How could he be so weak?

But Aang seems to understand. He offers a sad smile and the lemur moves to rest its head on his shoulder. 

"I know how you feel. I found out I was the Avatar when I was twelve, and then I had to master all of the elements in a few months," Aang tells him. "Trust me when I say, I get it. You wanna know how I managed?"

"How?"

Aang grins. "I had people by my side. Without my friends, I never would have made it as far as I did. Nowhere even  _close_."

Damian takes a moment to consider that. Where would he be, if not for Grayson? Or even Drake, or Todd, or Cain, or Brown? 

"So you are saying... I need other people," he finally says, words slow and deliberate. 

"That is exactly what I'm saying," Aang replies. He lets out a short sigh and moves the lemur to set it on his shoulder again. "Well, I think I've taken up enough of your time for now. You've still got school in the morning, don't you?"

He does, but this feels more important. 

He opens his mouth to tell Aang that, but then a thumb is touching his forehead, and he's falling back into the pool.

-

When Damian wakes up again, it's a full-body jerk kind of thing. Air rushes into his lungs too quickly and he sits up so fast his vision starts to swim. The world is too dark to see more than shadows, but his eyes don't seem to want to adjust.

At first, he can't remember it at all. He doesn't remember what woke him up, and he doesn't know why his heart is racing so quickly. He thinks maybe it was a nightmare because he's prone to getting those, but he doesn't think it was, because he's not sweating, and his bedsheets look rather intact. 

And then he remembers. The Spirit World. Everything comes rushing back, and Damian throws the covers off, letting them fall haphazardly to the floor as he scrambles for the door. He nearly crushes Alfred the Cat with his knee and almost trips over Titus once he reaches the floor, but he doesn't stop to thoroughly apologize like he usually would.

He has more important things to do.

His hands are rubbing his eyes as he tries to readjust to the real world, and he almost walks right past the room he's looking for. He pauses, stares at his hand, and then turns around. He rubs at his eye one more time, before throwing the door open.

The figure in bed immediately shoots up, gets tangled in the bedsheets, and ends up with half of their body on the ground. 

"Damian?" Grayson mumbles, pushing himself up and back onto the bed. He sits up fully before slurring, "what're you doin' up? It's way too early."

Damian hadn't really considered that and hadn't even bothered to check and see how much time had passed since he entered the Spirit World, but it's too late now. 

He takes a deep breath. "Grayson," he starts.

"Yeah?"

"I need your help."

 

**Author's Note:**

> i started this fairly soon after i wrote the first two parts of this series, but i didn't finish it until now. i'm trying to get this out as soon as possible because surprise surprise, another noreaster is coming, and there's a possibility of yet another power outage. brilliant. also, i'd like to point out that i have no idea where i'm going with this series. i have an idea about where i'd like to end up, but getting there? uh... i'm working on that.


End file.
